Iowa Opinions on Food and Drink

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Remember when Omaha had a 1am last-call? As a former frustrated night-owl, I certainly do. In those days, once you were kicked to the curb, hungry, cold, and probably pretty buzzed, your only options were fast-food or (dubiously) Village Inn and its ilk.

That’s why Eat The Worm was such a revolution when it opened a few years ago. At the time, there wasn’t much else that was open late downtown. Eat The Worm fills this niche nicely and sells its unique version of Mexican food well into the morning.

Now that Omaha has a 2am last-call, of course, I’m older and I don’t stay out much past midnight. But Eat The Worm is still a great place to go and it’s only improved. Supposedly when they opened they didn’t quite know how to make hard taco shells, so they improvised a kind of soft shell that’s rather particular to their kitchen. Whatever the real story is, the soft shell is still pretty good. The food is, on the whole, cheap, satisfying, and tasty. I’m a big fan of the taquitos.

I also can’t say enough about the margaritas. My first introduction to margaritas were the happy hour margaritas at Señor Matías. At first I thought hated margaritas. After trying just one of Eat The Worm’s house margs though, I realized I only hated terrible ones (a critical distinction). While the house margaritas are great, the top-shelf ones are even better and the margarita mix is fantastic.

If you must, you really can “eat the worm” as they say. You’ll end up paying dearly, of course. Not just in terms of dignity, but because they have to filter an entire bottle of tequila to get at the worm. Save your $50 and wait for the next rainstorm.